Pop Culture Pathology - What Comes Next?

What Comes Next?

Academia has been waiting anxiously for the next manifestation of popular culture pathology. The anticipation has caused the creation of two different views on the subject. One, pioneered in the United States, predicts that the science will next try to cause moral reform. Much fear surrounds this popular view but more than that there is suspicion that the sentiment has simply been placed at the influence of another experiment in the field itself. Given the ironic nature of the study it seems likely that the next manifestation will be at the hands of the next philosopher daring enough to repeat the Botto Experiment with a focus on the field of popular culture pathology instead of popular culture itself.

The second prediction arose in Europe and is more secular. Philosophers there believe that popular culture pathology is the end of the moral focus of the "new world." The term "new world" has been used here in order to call attention to the fact that the Americas have habitually been ahead of Europe technologically, but far behind intellectually. The idea that morality is facing its doom is generally coming, again, from postmodern European philosophy (see Nietzsche, Baudrillard, Heidegger) predicting the realization that meaning is being assigned by the institution not the individual. This brings the field back to Michel Foucault and the problem of the individual. This view harbors intense curiosity at the cyclical nature of the study. In the end only time will tell the future of this curious new field of study.